Because I love you, dearie
by Not that way never go that way
Summary: What if after Belle left, the story became a bit more like the Beauty and the Beast we all know?


"I don't want you anymore, dearie!" Said the beast, sternly staring at the wall opposite of Belle.

After hearing this, Belle grabbed her cloak and stormed out of the room, on the verge of tears. "Promise or no promise, I won't stay here another minute!"

Rumplestiltskin, the beast- was left in the dungeon, his chest heaving with his sorrow and frustration at himself for letting his temper get the best of him. The Queen was behind this. This was all her fault.

He thought to himself blame after blame, just to avoid accepting that he was just too cruel to her.

Belle dashed outside and headed toward the far away gate of her freedom, the grounds to the castle were huge, and she'd only been cleaning the main building of the place, she was unfamiliar with the grounds.

As she gets further away from the castle and closer to the gates, her feet inches deep in snow, she hears a wolf howling in the distance. These woods are dangerous, she needs to tread carefully.

The picturesque image of the snow in the forest, gates in sight, reminds her of a book she'd once read that was sitting around on a shelf in one of the guest rooms of Rumplestiltskin's castle, oh how she remembers that nice, warm room...  
>Rumplestiltskin had let her sleep there one night when she had been doing strenuous work on gardening.., but that was long ago.<p>

She's suddenly startled out of her thoughts when she sees she's finally at the gates. This was it. She was leaving. As she reached up and opened the gates, stepping through them, she hears something move behind her.

She turns around slowly, scared it might be Rumplestiltskin trying to stop her from leaving.

It was a wolf. A wolf was staring her right in the face. A big one, at that. She hurriedly steps through the gate and closes it behind her, trying to stop it from potentially attacking her.

It was no good,

Because when she was about to continue walking towards the village, another wolf appeared, and then another from the left.

She was surrounded completely by wolves that were about to kill her. She was going to die, here, without ever seeing her father again, and without ever really saying goodbye to Rumplestiltskin. Despite her distaste of him not believing in her love, that didn't change the fact that she loved him. It never could.

In a panicked attempt, she dashed between the two wolves, successfully outrunning them for an entirety of 6 whole seconds, when she fell into freezing water that she had no way of knowing was there. Luckily, she was able to pull herself out fast enough, but the wolves were caught up, and right out in front of her. There were four wolves, now. No escape.

She picked up a nearby stick, and started to flail it at them, but the branch was weak, and a wolf started tearing at her ankle and, before she knew it, she was sinking into the snow, about to be eaten by wolves.

As her consciousness beings to fade, the wolves stop tearing at her, and she can hear them whining in pain.

As she sees someone moving so quickly, her eyes can't follow, about and killing the wolves off one by one, her vision blurry and fading, she thinks to herself, without the power to speak 'It's you... goodbye...Rumplestilt...'

Rumplestiltskin was fidgeting about with many strange-looking potions, eventually picking one up and taking it with him the the guest bedroom that Belle was so fond of.

He splashed the potion on a rag and began healing Belle's wounds with it one by one, starting with the most severe ones first.  
>He was just about finished with stopping most of the bleeding when he heard her cry out in pain.<p>

Belle's eyes were open wide with shock and pain, and a bit of confusion. "Rumplestiltskin... how did you...? When did I.." She trailed off when she realized where exactly she was. The room she was daydreaming about.

"No one breaks deals with me, dearie."

She blinked in confusion for a moment, his comment seeming off-topic at first. She was about to open her mouth to reply when as sudden huge pain stabbed itself through her leg.  
>She looked down and saw that he was dabbing her wounded leg with something. She glanced over at the dresser and saw the bottle (assumedly the one the rag was soaked in), she did not want to know what kind of magic that was.<p>

She pulled her leg away from Rumplestiltskin, glaring at him for whatever reason. Rumplestiltskin giggled in his cute little way at her expense.

"You'll need to hold still, dearie." He leaned in and grinned a huge cat-grin at her. "The magic won't work, if you don't let me use it." He went back to tending her wound, but she just kept pulling away, and eventually, he just dabbed it as fast as he could.

"AH! THAT HURTS!" Belle scowled at Rumplestiltskin.  
>"All magic has it's price, Now hold still, dearie." He continued to grin proudly at her.<p>

Belle frowned, but stopped pulling away. After a while, Belle had to let go of her pride. "...By the way...thank you...for saving my life." She smiled kindly at him. So there really was a good person, somewhere in there.

Rumplestiltskin giggled, "I wasn't saving your life, I was protecting what belongs to me. We made a deal, and no one breaks deals with me, dearie." Belle looked slightly upset at this, and rolls her eyes, but smiles to herself, knowing the real reason he rescued her.

About 2 months later, once Belle's ankle was mostly healed and she could walk around(thanks to magic), she took a walk right outside the castle, strolling about on the nice, clear day. Rumplestiltskin was watching her build a little snowman with what snow was left.

Rumplestiltskin watched in slight confusion. He's never felt this way about anyone. He thinks about it, and decides that he wants to do something for her, in exchange for her continued companionship. While she is required to continue to do her chores, he realizes that she isn't really required to talk to him and be friendly, and he wants to make sure that she doesn't ignore him because of any of the Queen's misleading manipulations she might fall into.

It takes him days to figure out what exactly he wants to give her. After all, he doesn't want to give her another generic gift that can be given to anyone, be wants to gives her something she'll actually enjoy...like a book.

The library. He mostly used it to look up spells and for other some such information-seeking purposes, but Belle- Belle would use it all the time, and she wouldn't even be using the books that he needed!

He dashed down to his spinning wheel, knowing full-well what time she'll come in to dust his collection. Sure enough, as soon as he gets his wheel going, Belle walks in, duster in hand.

He doesn't look at her, and continues spinning. He's in no hurry to show her how excited he is about his gift. After a minute or two, he decides it's been long enough, so he puts his thread down and turns around to talk to Belle.

"Belle, there's something that I wish to show you." Belle looks up and smiles, her curiosity showing "What is it?" Rumplestiltskin stands and walks up to her "Close your eyes, dearie." She gives him a small, but excited smile and does as he says.

She feels his hand in hers and all of the sudden, there's a woozy feeling going over her, and she's about to open her eyes, but to make sure, she asks "Now may I open them?"  
>He only giggles and says simply "No."<p>

He waves his hand and in a couple of moments all of the curtains are open, and light is shining bright into the room.

"...Now can I open them?" Belle smiled eagerly.  
>"Yes yah can, dearie!" Rumplestiltskin laughed his words out in his excitement.<p>

As soon as she saw the Library, her eyes widened with sheer amazement at it's size and amount of books! There were so many, there no way she could ever read all of them! An endless supply of books for her to read!

But then she paused. Rumplestiltskin wouldn't do something like this without a price, surely. That's how he worked...right?

"Why are you doing this?"

Rumplestiltskin was grinning wide, he just couldn't help himself. "Because I love you, dearie."


End file.
